


Not Good Enough For You

by MaddieandChimney



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Mentions of Violence, Postpartum Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: It's meant to be the happiest time of her life, caring for her baby and loving her boyfriend but there's a dark cloud suffocating her. Leaving is the best option.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Madney One-Shots





	Not Good Enough For You

Maddie wraps her arms tighter around her legs, resting her chin on her knees before she looks at the man in front of her. “Why?” It’s one word but it somehow holds so much meaning, one supposedly simple question that she knows the answer to, but the answer is so inexplicably complicated she doesn’t know how to say it aloud.

So instead, she stays silent, knowing she’s making everything ten times worse, watching the desperate tears fall down his face. It’s strange, she thinks, Doug would cry a lot, mostly at the beginning when he would beg her to see his side of things, that he didn’t want to hurt her but she left him no choice. Doug would kneel in front of her – very much as Chimney was doing right then – and cry about his mother, how she had left him so of course, he couldn’t let Maddie leave him, too.

She fell for those tears every single time.

And she knows, she knows Chimney is not Doug and she knows his tears are very much real and there is not an ounce of manipulation behind them. He’s crying because _she_ made _him_ cry, not because he was trying to fool her into believing something that wasn’t true. She’s the reason there’s tears falling down his face, she’s the reason he looks as though he’s going to break at any given moment. She still can’t help but make the comparison in her own head though, just as she does far too often. Sixteen years with Doug really couldn’t be erased by two amazing years with a man who genuinely loves her.

That’s why she has to leave, so she can stop dragging him down to her level. So, he can be with someone who he doesn’t have to pander to after an argument, or comfort just because a glass was smashed by accident. She has to leave him because she’s absolutely terrified that she’s damaging him beyond repair. 

“If you’re going to leave us, Maddie, you need to give me a reason. You can’t just… decide to leave.”

Us. It wasn’t just him she was hurting. They have a daughter and she’s perfect in every single way possible and Chimney is the most amazing dad. So of course, when she walks out of the door like she wants to, she’s not only leaving him behind. But Maddie can feel herself breaking a little more each and every day, she can see the sadness in her boyfriends eyes, how her daughter is starting to cling onto her daddy a little tighter as though she _senses_ something isn’t quite right with her mother.

It’s all in her head, that’s what Frank keeps telling her before he tells her it sounds as though she has post-partum depression. But she _knows_ that’s not true, she was messed up way before she gave birth. Doug had spent sixteen years breaking her down and she decides she was stupid to ever believe he would ever let her be happy.

The moment Amelia was born there was just this overwhelming sense of being completely undeserving. But it _absolutely_ wasn’t depression, it was punishment for finally thinking she was worthy of love.

“I hurt you.” It’s the first time she’s spoken since he had come home and found her with a suitcase and a badly written note. And her eyes gaze to the small cut on his forehead, before she bites down on her lip. She’s watching the wheels turn in his mind as he looks from her, to the kitchen where she had thrown a plate at him just a few days before. It hadn’t hit him (even if she had intended it to) but the shards had shattered near enough to him that there was blood. Enough blood for him to call Hen and clean him up whilst his best friend looked at Maddie as though she was a complete stranger.

That’s exactly how Maddie felt.

Even if Frank kept saying it was in her own head and she needed to get help beyond what he could provide her with.

“Maddie, you’re… not well, but there’s help. You just need to be ready to ask for it. I don’t…”

“I’m just like Doug.” She cuts him off, “T-think he’s punishing m-me… m-making me like him. Don’t wanna be but I wanted to hurt you.” He’s quickly shaking his head as though he doesn’t believe her, but she knows she aimed that plate directly for his head, she was just thankful that not only was her aim entirely off base but his reflexes meant they avoided anything too horrific.

Chimney however, despite every word falling from her lips, despite the fact it should be enough for him to grab their baby and run as far away from her as possible, just grabs her arms and pulls them from her knees, “You’re nothing like Doug. Let me take you to the hospital Maddie, let me help you, please.”

He’s begging. Looking at her with tear filled eyes, his hands shaking as he holds her by the wrists. She can remember how happy they were barely four months before, how much she was looking forward to being a mother and now, how much she longed to be anywhere other than around the two people she loved. The two people who deserved so much better than anything she could give them

There’s silence, until something inside of her just breaks, “I-I’m not good enough for you, for either of you.” Maddie whispers, frantically trying to avoid meeting his eyes as she looks down when the tears begin to fall and the all too familiar tension in her chest starts to rise.

“That’s not true, Maddie, please, please give me a chance to prove it. Please let me help you. I love you, I love you so much… please, baby, please.” He’s asked her a hundred times before, but there’s something about the desperation in his voice, how utterly hopeless he sounds as he grips onto her that little bit tighter that forces her to timidly nod her head, before she whispers, “O-okay.” 


End file.
